The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 283: Jack Nix—You Can't Lead from a Pickup Truck

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Jack Nix, chief operating officer of Shelby Erectors and reinforcing ironworker (a.k.a. rodbuster), talks about his appearance on Dirty Jobs, what it takes to tote steel and bust rod, and how it feels to have all your hard work covered up by cement.

Hey guys, it's the way I heard at episode number 283. This one is called You Can't Lead from a pickup truck. That's a quote from today's guest, Jack Nix, who some of you might have seen if you watch Dirty Jobs and really Chuck, I mean, who wouldn't. Who doesn't? Sure. Certainly everybody on this call. Dirty Jobs, as I hope you know, after an eight-year hiatus came back about a year and a half ago. And it was a rough re-entry for me, being older than I've ever been, one of the first jobs I wanted to do that I hadn't been able to do back in the old days was ironworker. Rod-busting in particular. We got a line on a company down in Florida called Shelby Erectors, who specializes in doing all the iron work, all the rebar for bridges. And, dude, when I say these guys kick my butt, I mean, it was so humbling.

I was so out of practice and to suddenly wind up at 6 a.m. on a bridge in the heat, just humping. I mean, tons of iron with these half men, half machine creatures who are iron workers. It just, it was a day. To quote Leslie Nielsen, you picked the wrong day to quit sniff and glue. You know, that was like of all the jobs that you could come back on. I know. Like that one was the worst. Just in terms of backbreaking, really super hard work. These guys carry hundreds and hundreds of pounds every day of iron rods. They carry them quite a distance. And you're walking on treacherous terrain as well, right? Yes. Everything about it's treacherous. You know, we spent the day a few hundred feet in the air working on a half-built bridge laying down the ironwork. And of course, you'll hear in the conversation with Jack, but there's so much artistry in this. it all just gets covered up with concrete.

Right. I mean, it's a lot like every other really difficult trade, except that it's completely out of sight and completely out of mind. And it really takes a completely different kind of person to do this work. And Jack Nix is that kind of person. He runs this business with his wife. They do 15, 16, 17 million bucks a year. They've currently got 42 jobs going on.

on. Most of them, I think maybe all of them in Florida. He keeps his people busy. He's figured out how to blend the mastery of a skill with an entrepreneurial brain. And the guy just has a work ethic second to none. So for all those reasons, I just wanted to have him on the podcast because, you know, I think we're singing out of the same hymn book. You can't listen to Jack Nix and not understand and realize the extent of the opportunity that's available in this country, in his industry right now. He's got a great business, a thriving business that he runs with his wife. He's got guys who work for him that have been working for him for 20 plus years, happy as clams, and super buff as well, because you've got to be in that industry. You know, and he did all this with just a

high school diploma. Yeah. He also has an apprenticeship. ship program that I really want to share with you guys just because I honestly think the way forward, it's just not going to be through getting shop class back in high schools. We just can't wait for the government to figure that out. We can't wait for the government to set up programs to help people get trained. We have to look to the industry. Jack knows that. He's doing it. He's put his money where his mouth is. He's 55 years old. He's living the American dream. He's a hardworking son of a gun. And the odds are very good if you've been to Florida that you've driven over a bridge that Shelby Erectors has constructed. It's just a great conversation with a regular dude who figured it out.

Yep. And continues to figure it out as he goes. He also knows better than most that you can't lead from a pickup truck. And you're about to hear why right after this. Do do do do do do do. Dumb. Well, people are still raving, raving, I tell you, about my mother's performance in the latest Pure Talk commercial. And if you haven't seen it,

I encourage you to give it a look on my Facebook page and read the comments. They're hysterical. In this commercial, you'll not only see Peggy Roe gently criticizing her oldest son for his longstanding and well-established commitment issues. You'll learn about the latest offer from Pure Talk, which includes unlimited talk text

and data for just 3499 a month with no contracts and no commitments of any kind. You can see why I love these guys. If, on the other hand, you have better things to do with your time than watch my mom and me be impossibly charming together, then allow me to remind you here, without all the cleverness and charm, that unlimited talk text and data on a blazing fast network for just 3499 a month really is an unmitigated bargain from an American wireless company that keeps you. all their customer service in this country, supports our veterans in a meaningful way, as well as the Microwworks Foundation, and allows me to exploit my own mother in a national

advertising campaign. Do what my mom did. Get yourself unlimited high-speed data for just 3499 a month at puretalk.com slash row. You can switch in as little as 10 minutes at puretalk.com slash row As I live and breathe There you are In all of your glory Jack Nix, my God, how's the beard? The beard's going well, you know?

It's about the full length that it gets But it's doing all right, you know, keeping it natural. You really are. Where in the world are you right now? So I am in actually Tavenir, Florida, which is in the Florida

of Keys. You know there's like a hurricane or something coming in your direction. Yeah, I told that to Chuck yesterday. The hurricane hit landfall last night about 4 a.m. up near West Palm Beach. It's heading across the state on a northwest trajectory going through Orlando or Cala, then going to hit the west coast and then kind of go up that coastline and up into Georgia, I believe, is the latest track. But down here in the Keys, it is sunny, blue skies. Maybe a slight breeze, but we're doing good. So, I mean, is it an actual hurricane or a tropical storm? Is this a distinction that no longer comes with a difference

because you're in Florida and it's always going to be freaking something? It actually was a category one when it came across. So the difference, it went from like 70 miles an hour. Category one starts at 75 miles an hour, so I guess it picked up enough speed to be classified as a category one. I would imagine as soon as it made landfall, it probably dropped back down to a tropical storm. It's really just more of a rain event than it is a wind event.

But being in Florida, I can tell you we don't get too excited until it's above a two, you know. Yeah, I mean, I think your whole threshold for excitement is kind of its own thing. I definitely saw it on the job. But I am wondering, as a guy who's got his hands on the infrastructure and somebody who's spent his whole life working in construction, When you see a hurricane coming through, is your first thought, oh, no, gosh, this is obviously a tragedy. But then, like, the quiet part is we're going to be so busy. Yeah, well, it all depends on what level of storm you get, right? So you have that going on on the West Coast because of Ian, a lot of construction going on.

And especially on infrastructure, there was some damages over there that need to be repaired. But more than not, the bridge structure. are pretty solid, okay? There's been a few exceptions where they cause us to gain work or gain workload. But when these storms come through, you got to batten down the hatches. You got to, you know, get ready for it. All the MOT has to be picked up so the traveling public, the signs and stuff don't fly around the job sites. And so it's a mess. And then everything gets shut down. Then you're trying to figure out, okay, when can we get back to work and get our crews back? And it's a hassle for sure.

It's just a completely different world, Jack. You know, I mean, so many people, we all know where Florida is. We can all read about it. We all see the footage. But unless you live down there, and unless you've actually lived through a major event like that, it's just one of those things, understanding it is different than experiencing it. Yeah, I think, you know, the one thing with the hurricanes is we always get foreworn. We have notice, right?

They don't just pop up. So to me, what's scarier is what you guys deal. with on the West Coast is earthquakes. And then what about tornadoes? Tornadoes, you know, those things just pop up and there's not a whole lot of warning you get on that. So, you know, you met my partner, Mary, when we were shooting down there a couple years ago. So Mary still has PTSD. We were in Bentonville, not long after those tornadoes blew through Joplin, a little north up in Missouri. Right. And boy, I mean, same thing.

Unless you've lived through one, when you're sitting in a hotel room and you turn on the weather channel, you can see the hurricane coming three, four, five days in advance. It's this lumbering giant coming toward you. And you're like, oh, is it going to zig or is it going to zag? Those tornado, there's literally a guy standing on Main and Oak Street reporting live. And he's like, okay, the tornado just touched down one block and it's coming up. No, no, it's coming down Maine. And then you look at your phone and you realize the holiday in you're in is on Maine.

And then the alarms go off. And then everybody runs to the basement. And to have that kind of real time thing happening, I mean, you just see your life flash before your eyes and you see real, no kidding, panic. And poor Mary, she still can't talk about it. She like got a facial tick for the better part of a week, developed a stutter. It really left the mark. Yeah, those things scary me more like hurricanes. We're so used to them here in Florida,

and you have an opportunity to look at it and say, okay, this is a size storm. I'm in the cone. You know, we call it the cone of death, right? So I'm either in the cone of death or I'm not in the cone of death. And if you're not in the cone of death, you kind of disregard the hurricane. You kind of keep an eye on it.

But if you are, you got to make a decision. Am I staying where I going? So that's what's going on there. Well, look, I don't want to turn this into a weather report, but I did want to start there because you kind of have been in the eye of the storm your whole life. You work in construction. You work in construction at a time of an unprecedented labor shortage. And I didn't think I had a chance to properly thank you or compliment you when we first met because, you know, that was the first dirty jobs I had done after an eight-year hiatus.

And you and your merry band of psychopaths. kicked my ass so hard. It was about the toughest re-entry an old man can have into a job that he loves. But I limped around for the better part of a week. I could barely get my ass off the toilet for the better part of three or four days, not because I was having issues

just because my legs couldn't support my weight anymore. So I want to talk to you about rod-busting. I want to talk to you about construction. I want to talk to you about skilled labor, entrepreneurship, college, and all the stuff we touched on in that episode. But let me just start by asking, how's your crew? And what was their take on the episode that aired? I guess it's been over a year ago now.

Yeah, well, it aired. The premiere was January 2nd. So we had a company watch party through this virtual world. Had, I think, with a Facebook live thing, stream going on. So everybody was watching and it was it was very well received. First of all, I thought the episode came out great. I think it shined our job, what we do in a very good light. And really, I think it's the hardest physical labor job out there in the industry, you know.

And I've had people that work in different industries. It's extremely physical hard work. But it's also very gratifying work, right? Especially on the bridgework, we're building big steel, big structures. big heavy lifts, and it's impressive. It's definitely impressive to us. So the show was really done well. It put us in a good light. And I think your soreness is a testament to how hard that work can be, right? Well, I hope the other thing that came through was just the artistry of it. You know, I wanted to do an ironworking segment for years, and it was just always a scheduling

issue. The thing that attracted me to it was not just the brute strength required to get the job done, Or the intelligence. I mean, there's a lot of math. There's a lot of blueprints. There's a ton of stuff going on. But it's the artistry, Jack. It's the, like when you do those inverted teas, when people have a chance to see a completely constructed bridge just of the rebar

before the concrete comes in, their jaws drop open. They just can't believe how weirdly beautiful it is. That's the thing that I hope we can. captured, and it's the most poignant part of your work, because all that work, all that artistry, all that time, and then you just step back and the concrete dudes come in and cover it up forever. They cover up forever. We have a cartoon ad that we're running right now, and the guy's saying, isn't it a shame that they cover all of our work with concrete? So that's, you know, and that's what they do. I mean, we come in there, we put this skeleton in, and, you know,

we're really puzzle builders. I mean, and you hit it. It's not like you just go in there and start place that you got to have, there's a sequence of way you got to build that in order to get everything fit together and be able to be productive at it. And especially on the inverted teas, those big caps, you've got a taste of that, putting those bands on. It's a step-by-step process to be able to get the whole thing built. There's a lot of intelligence that goes onto it and rebar plans again are extremely difficult to read when you get into complicated structures such as that. It's not even in this language, Jack. I've read Blueprint. I've read Blueprint before. I can usually make basic sense. I couldn't even tell if the thing was right side up or upside

down. It's like another alphabet is dragged in with new shapes I've never seen before. And you guys huddle around the sawed horses, look at it, nod, make sounds, and then poof, there's a bridge. And it's kind of a miracle. So I guess maybe there are a lot of people listening right now who don't quite understand what it takes to build a business like the one you and your wife. How is Jen, by the way? Is she around? Jen's doing fantastic. She was here. She decided to leave so she didn't make any background noise and interfere with our podcast that we're doing here. But as soon as I saw the invitation and I showed it her, she says, oh yeah, you're doing that. So get a hold of them and tell them

you're in. Well, tell her I said hello and apologize because I think my conversation with her wound up on the cutting room floor, along with so much of the other stuff that we wind up doing. That's part of what I wanted to talk to you about, too, because your journey, your journey into a guy who's running a business that's doing, if I recall, was it $17, $18 million a year? Yep. High school diploma, no college. Just kind of give me the short version of how you wound up in this business and how you grew it to a place where must be 100, 200, 200 employees.

at this point. It's kind of a funny story. I had no intentions of going into construction. Matter of fact, I really didn't know what I wanted to do going out of high school. Although I will say in my family, I'm the oldest of six,

only one person went to college. It really wasn't something that was in our career. That was my youngest sister. She's 15 years younger than me, by the way. But my dad was an ironworker, and he had his business, but I knew how hard that was. I was like, I'm not sure that's what I was doing.

At the time, I think I was graduating high school, working at Domino's Pizza, you know, delivering pies. We were at my graduation party. My dad's barbecuing hot dogs, and we got friends over there, my best friend at the time, talking to my dad, and I come walking over, and he goes, hey, we're going to work for your dad on Monday. And I go, what? He goes, yeah, we're going to go to work. Your dad's got a job for us. I said, I look at my dad, he goes, yeah, I got a job for you, start on Monday.

Okay, tells me where to be. My buddy guy. My buddy doesn't show up. I do. I walk out of the car. My dad had given me a set of tools, and I walk out of the car, you know, 645, go meet the foreman. He goes, you can just take those and put those back in the car. Just bring your gloves and your hard hat.

And so, and I toaded steel for about two weeks before I even saw my pliers or anything like that. So, but that's how I got started in this. It was kind of by accident. And I liked it. I like the physical nature. There were certain days I hated it and thought I was going to die. But then I, you know, you kind of get used to it and you start going. And then you find out you take some pride in what you're doing.

And it's very interesting what we're doing. And the next thing you know, I'm out there working. And in high school, I took drafting and architecture. So I had two years of drafting classes and one year of architecture. So plan reading came real easy to me. And so... Jack, there are a lot of high schools that don't even... I mean, I don't even know that my high school offered drafting or architecture.

I don't... Yeah. Chuck, do you remember? No. I don't think it was even on the agenda. Yeah, so I'm 55. I graduated in 85. It was drafting class where we were using T squares and triangles and pencils and

it was old school. There was no computers back then, not in those classes. I think when I was in high school, my senior year, I had a computer science class where we got introduced to, I don't remember the big, the Apple computer, if you remember back in those days. Sure. But, you know, drafting, and then that architecture class helped me know how to do sections and how to see those things because I was drawing them, so I obviously made it easier.

So reading plans came fairly easy to me. And then I was, because of my relationship of my father and my willingness, I got an opportunity to run work with a small crew. And so I started running work. And I was the lowest paid foreman in the entire company. I think everybody, the boss's kid. I think everybody in the crew made more money than me. Wherever I've worked, I've always tried to gravitate to being in charge.

I'd like, I'd just like that as part of my personality. Can we go back to a toting steel? You just kind of glossed over. and if people you know I mean it's not like you're just picking up pieces of steel and walking them here and there

these are rods rebar and some of them are thick some of them are really thick some of them are so stupidly thick they just thick's the wrong word and all of them are heavy dude they're so heavy and they're long and they bend

and they're on your shoulder and just kind of do you remember Remember the first time you picked up a load like that and kind of walked through that lattice work that you had me walk through on the top of that bridge? Yeah, it's, well, one, if you don't know, if you've never done this work, you carry those steel on your shoulder. Anything that's of length or of size. I mean, that's just the best, the most practical we get on the place to put it. So we carry all our steel on our shoulders. And that takes getting used to.

I mean, there's putting a lot of weight on there. How long are those rods on average that you're carrying? Well, the longest rod is 60 feet, okay? But they go anywhere from, you know, 10 footers to 60 footer. I'd say on average, you know, 40 feet. On the deck where we put Mike, what he's talking about, the longitudinal bars are going to be 60 foot, so they get the maximum use of the length of the steel.

The transverse bars are going to be based on the length of the bridge deck. But usually, you know, they can be 60. but most bridge decks are 50-something feet, so they're going to be 50-something feet long, you know, 40 feet, whatever the width of the bridge deck is. And you have like four guys carrying, what did you say in the program? I think it was like one for each man

plus one for the company. So it'll be four guys carrying five bars. And what do each one of those bars weigh? So what Mike was carrying was a number five. Jack got his numbers wrong there, but that weighs 1.5 pounds per foot. Okay, so if you got, you know, I'd have to do the math because I don't do math well in my head, but you do the math.

60 footer is what? 60 plus half of 60 would be 90. 60s. Yeah, so that would be 150, right? Did I do that right? No, I think that's a little long. So, 1.5. It'd be like 90, right?

So if it's 60 feet, it would be 60 plus half of 60 is 30, so it'd be 90. Typically, you're trying to keep your loads on your guys at less than 100 pounds, right? So if you can. So you're splitting up the amount of. a weight to get it right around 100 pounds. But you're taking that weight and you're putting it up on your shoulder. You all have to lift together or somebody gets screwed. And again, size and height is a big deal and position on where you are in the bar. So, you know, you learn real quick where you need to be. Tall guys like me was not good to be in the middle. But, you know, there's also a manly side

of it. I'm going to be in the middle. I'll take the weight because then you're the guy pulling the bars out of the bundle, right? Yeah. So, you know, you saw Mike do that, catching the bar is a whole other, that's a whole another trick of the trade. It's not just carrying it. And then it's dropping it down on your leg and holding it and then pulling them out and catching them as they're pulling out.

So it works as a team, right, Mike? Yeah. I mean, look, it's super hard to visualize. You know, I encourage people who haven't seen the episode to check it out or just Google rod busting. And you can get a sense of it. But you got a picture four or five guys walking. single file over an unbuilt bridge. And on their shoulders are five or six of these pieces of

rebar. So the total weight, you know, is somewhere between five and six hundred pounds. And you're not just walking. You're, you're walking through this lattice work of other pieces of rebar that have already been laid down. So your feet have to go into these squares. And the rebar is about a foot off of the deck. So if you hook your toe or your heel, you'll stumble. And if you stumble, you go down like a cheap card table. And if you do that, you drag everyone with you. And so you've got literally a quarter of a ton on the shoulders of four guys who are walking very carefully through this iron minefield, way high up in the air, underneath the blazing sun, again and again and again over and over and over. And you lay these things down. And if that's all there was to the job,

then you'd get a gold medal at the end of the day because it's an ass kicker. But that's just where it starts. Then there's the tying. And then there's the rearranging. And then there's other stuff. I think, honestly, I blocked a lot of it out, Jack. So what's the worst of two evils? Is it carrying the steel and laying it out? Or is it bent over working at your feet, tying? that until you do the other one for a while. Like, you can be miserable in a lot of different ways. Right. In this job, the grass is always browner on the other side of the fence.

Yeah, it's, you know, bending down with these small wires and every single intersection, every single right angle needs to be tied off. And for years, I guess it's still done by hand, but there have been some advantage. as I recall in the tying process. So I don't know if you recall what Brooks said to you, but Brooks said you just have to embrace the suck. So it just depends on which suck you're working on at the time. And then you just have to put your arms around and embrace that thing.

I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician. He had zero interest in running a food company. but he was annoyed that so much imported meat was being deceptively marketed and labeled as domestic, and decided to fix the problem. The result was a company called Good Ranchers. It's a completely honest, totally transparent meat company that deals directly with American farms and ranches and promises to deliver high-quality American-grown meat for a fair price.

Today, that promise. And Ben's absolute determination to keep it has not only propelled good ranchers into the top tier of meat, delivery companies, it's fueled enormous awareness among meat eaters like me, that we have all been affirmatively deceived by policies that allow imported me to be marketed as domestic. That's the reason I switched to good ranchers. If I'm being honest, though, I doubt that I would have stayed this long had the quality not been so exceptional. Every single cut I've devoured from good ranchers has been straight up delicious and every morsel was raised on a small American farm or ranch. Give them a try. Subscriptions are affordable and flexible. In fact, if you start your plan today,

you'll get free meat for life and $40 off your first order. Just use code mic at good ranchers.com. Free meat for life, 40 bucks off your first order. Good ranchers.com. American meat delivered. If you could eat a steer, if you could eat a cow, don't take a chance on a foreign ranch. Get good ranch. now. There's plenty of suck to hold on to in Florida. I mean, it was over 100 degrees that day. It was hot. You know, and on top of everything else,

you worry about your crew. I worry about mine. These guys are out there also dehydrated. By the way, I went back and looked at the footage. I drank 10 bottles of water over the course of that shoot and didn't go to the bathroom once. Yeah. Something happens to your body.

It just holds on. into the water and processes it and sweats it out or whatever. But so my guys have cameras on their shoulders. We've got iron on ours. And it's just a beehive of activity. And honestly, when we left, I was relieved and surprised that, that nobody had gotten hurt. Well, and we do that day in and day out.

And I've said this before. Bridge decks is the hardest thing we do, because it's the most physically demanding without much of a rest time or being in a good working position. You're either toting bars, okay, or you're bent over time. And it's all day long, every day.

I worked on the Howard Franklin Bridge when I was just dating, Jen, three miles long, I think 65, 75 feet wide. And you would, would stand up as you were tying bridge deck and you would look and you couldn't even see past the middle of the bridge and you go, I've got a year of this. A year of doing nothing but tying bridge deck. I mean, at time, just defeating, you look at it and you

go, am I going to be able to do this for a year? But, you know, it's repetitive and you just do it and you get in your thing and you got a good team. It is a actual, it's a very team oriented job too, you can't do it by yourself, you know. Well, the thing I liked about the segment that we did is it did capture the tedium, it captured the difficulty, the challenge, and all of that stuff. But there's this other thing. And, you know, when Dirty Jobs was at its best, it captured that other thing just with the cameras. You know, there's not much I can say to articulate it.

But it is that band of brothers mentality. in your case, I'd like to know how it feels to drive over a bridge that you built years later, knowing that all of that work, all of that bending, all of that toting, all of that tying, is covered for an eternity. And at any given time, you're probably the only guy on that bridge who knows what it took to make it happen. that either goes in the poor me column or it goes into another place where it lives and drives you. And that's what I'm trying to get at. My family and my friends, when they drive with me within the state of Florida in particular,

I'm always, yep, we built that bridge. Oh, we built that bridge. Oh, we built that bridge. And I still maybe tell the story about it. We just had a retreat. You didn't meet Mike Wagner, one of my superintendents, and we had a bet going, how many times is Mike going to tell you he built that bridge? And it was the Santa Bella Island Bridge.

It was right next to that thing. And I think it ended up being 13 times. We were together for two days. But, you know, how proud he is that they, he built that bridge. He was the foreman that ran that job. And there's just a ton of pride in it. And I feel that. When I look at those projects, I'm just like, yep, we built that.

And then I have people ask me a question, well, how do you build a bridge? And I go, well, it's kind of easy. But I think it's only easy because that's all we've done our whole lives, right? So we think of it as easy. I think a lot of people in construction feel that way. I had an uncle who was like that. We would drive through Baltimore and he laid brick and he'd say, oh, you know, I did the facade on that.

I did that hospital. I did that school. Not everybody can say that. It's a big deal to have built a lot of things. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And big things.

You know, for us, it's big things. And not just the big ones, but also the small ones. But, yeah, the big ones are the ones you take the most pride in. So you say, yeah, I built that. I guess maybe it has to do with the idea that nobody else is saying it for you. I think part of the reason Dirty Jobs is still on the air is that a show came along that tapped the country on the shoulder and said, hey, man, look at the facade that guy built. Look at the bridge those people built.

And so by and large, you still have to be your own PR department because no one's really doing it. it for you. And I have to think that that's been a challenge for recruitment as well. PR for your industry, PR for the specific job, PR for your company, finding people who are able to take that same level of pride in the work. I know the answer to this question, but talk, if you would, about recruiting and about the crew that you have, what makes them so unique in the world of construction and what we can do to attract more like-minded people to your industry. Yeah, so that's the challenge for everybody right now.

That's the elephant in the room, right? How do we get this generation? What are we in Z now? I think Generation Z or... I think we're out of letters, man. Yeah, I think we're all the way to Z. So how do we get them interested? And so we all have different takes on it.

And for me, I was watching our industry go, and it was on the job training. So every generation, my dad said they were better iron workers than I was, right? I say I'm a better iron worker than my son is. I mean, I watch these generations, and you go, it's getting watered down every generation. And so unless we do something to fix that and create some kind of a transference of knowledge,

then it's going to continue. So, you know, I believe strongly in apprenticeship and doing that. And so we've set up in a DOL apprenticeship program using NCCR. I know if you're familiar with NCCR curriculum. So, you know, spell it out. Like what's? NCCER National Education. National Center for Construction Education and Research.

There you go. Come on, Mike. Everybody knows that. And they're based out of Gainesville, Florida. It's a nationally recognized credentials for construction, all the construction trades that are portable. So when the student gets his credentials, he can take them and floor will recognize him

or Baker or whoever he goes to work for so they get to take those with them. So that's a great program. What I'm getting at, they built these curriculums, so I'm not a teacher and I don't need to be building curriculum, but I can teach curriculum,

so I can take their curriculum and then add our twist onto it, and this is the way Shelby Rectors does it, but we have a standard. So I believe strongly in that. And I think this generation of kids we've been telling them since they were little for the last few groups that they need to go to college to be successful. And then they go to college and maybe their family can afford college or maybe they can't.

I would say the majority can't. So then they take out student loans and they go to school for four years, which I'm not knocking college, but you don't need a college education to do a vast majority of the jobs that are out there these days. So they go to school, they come out, they're in debt, and then how many people do you hear tell you, yep, I got my degree in college to do this, and how many of them are working in their field? Very few. Very, very few, yeah. But now they owe 100,000 to more, and now they're behind the eight ball, and they lost four years of eligibility. So my thought process has been on the apprenticeship is that,

we call our program, earn while you learn. So not only are we providing this to you for free, you're not paying for it. We give you to classes. We give you credentials that equal a craftsman status, and we're going to pay you while you're doing it, okay? And you're going to get your on-the-job training while you're working and have a job, okay, versus going out and going to school and then hoping to get a job. And ours is a two-year apprenticeship program, 4,000 man hours, 4,000 hours and two years, and we have 12 modules in our curriculum that need to be passed on the knowledge portion. So, you know, on any kind of craft training, you have two parts, right? You have knowledge portion, and then you have the applicable ability to perform and to do

that job. So you have the on-the-job training. So even kids that go and get a construction degree in college, what do they really know about construction? 0.0. Yeah. There's a problem, a disconnect. How many people have gone through the program you just described? So where we're at right now is we have, I think we have three or four people enrolled in our program, starting with our core program.

Right now we're only at about 100 employees, okay? At our peak, we were at 200, but we're about 100 employees. So we have those, but 65% of my workforce is certified, meaning they have, either they have graduated for our apprenticeship program or they have tested and done the assessment and tested through the apprenticeship program because of their experience and the testing test is their knowledge portion, right? So that's what we go. So we have a very high percentage of our workforce are journeyman certified rodbusters. reinforcing iron workers is the actual trade. How does the union work within your industry? I mean, you're in Florida. I guess that's a right to work state. It is.

Does that apply to rod busting? So in the union, they have iron worker. Rod busting is one portion of their apprenticeship program, right? So you have union iron worker is, does rebar, does structural, welding, miscellaneous metals, that's part of their entire curriculum. And I don't know, I'm not a union contractor, so I don't know how many years their program is. I believe it's four years. It might be longer. But there's different levels. And some people are going to do all of those crafts and some of them are only going to do one of them. Maybe somebody says, I just want

to be a rodbuster or I want to be structural and I don't know how the union deals with that. Okay, but I know in our end, what we're trying to do, we're competing with organized labor. I believe our training program is equivalent or better. I've got a two-year reinforcing iron worker program, which not only teaches, it teaches just the rebar side of things, but then, you know, signal person certification, rigor certification, intermediate rigor, advanced rigor. So we have all these different modules that go into our program to make sure that these guys are qualified as a journeyman rodbuster. So once you're qualified, Jack, once you've got your paper, you've gone through the

4,000 hours, how much work is out there waiting to be done? Could the kind of rodbuster I've just described find work in just about any state? How busy are you and how busy are they? There is a ton of work. I mean, there's work everywhere. And yes, if you are. are good at what you do and you have your credentials. And let's not forget, getting credentials and being, just being educated in that craft doesn't make you a good rodbuster, right? So there's

the production side of things, which I think is part of the problem with this younger generation. I'm really getting that. You can't just learn it. You need to be able to do it. Okay. But if you're good and you're qualified, you can get a job any day. I can find you a job in a heartbeat. there's so much work out there right now and so many job vacancies that need to be filled everybody's hiring everybody's struggling with the same thing how do we get people in these now i'm fortunate right now with my workload we only have about two open positions we just had that meeting yesterday but that fluctuates you know it fluctuates you know it fluctuates you pick up a new job next thing you know okay now you're gonna need maybe four or five more guys or maybe 10 more guys you

know so it fluctuates based on workloads like i said at one point when we were doing the i4 job we were at 200 and 225 was the maximum number of employees we ever had and that was in our biggest year 17 and a half million we've come back down to a more steady level so that was our peak those jobs only come you know every 25 years or so we got that but you know we're running about 100 employees and we have about 41 active jobs with this kind of work especially with on the transportation and rebar work I don't hire people for a job site because there's not enough continuity do you work for my crews on any given day. So we might work on a job site. Let's see we're doing substructure. And am I talking too much you tell me, okay? No, no, no, no, no. But I'm just going through my trade.

This is the way my trade works. So, you know, we go and we're doing substructure. Well, we may only have three days worth of work for four guys there. So what we do is we hire for an area. And we tell them you can expect to travel anywhere from zero to 50 miles. and if we got to ask you to go more than 50 miles to get to work, then we start paying travel expense, travel reimbursement expense, you know, based on the mileage and stuff like that.

So what we tell them, we hire you for this area. You could be on five different jobs this week, but it typically doesn't work out like that. It's maybe two to three different jobs. And we shift what we're very good at doing is maneuvering or shifting our crews and filling our needs with this group of people that work this area. And let's say that area gets too busy. Well, there's an adjacent area over here.

And he might have people that he can loan you or vice versa. If you're slow, hey, can you work a couple of my guys? And so we work very well as a team. And that's how we manage our work. If I tried to hire people just for a single job, what do I do when there's no work? I can't afford to pay these guys to sit there and do nothing, right? And then the contractor doesn't want to hear it when you say, hey, I don't have the people for you. I mean, that's the difference between a good subcontractor and a poor subcontractor

is being able to meet the customer's demands. That's how we do it. So on a residential level, or just a much smaller level than what you're accustomed to, in my little part of the world, I know three or four guys who run three or four separate construction companies. I know lots of citizens who are in various stages of renovation, building houses all the way just to you know, adding rooms to dealing what Chuck is dealing with right now, which is a plumbing disaster in his apartment that, you know, has got him turned inside out. And the thing I notice everywhere is the problem you just described. On some level, how long do you need to wait for a plumber?

How long should we expect to wait for an electrician? How far beyond, you know, where I live, you get 18 months to get the work done. And if you don't get it done in 18 months, you start paying fines. I don't know anybody who's not north of two years at this point, some north of three years. Nothing seems to be getting done on time anywhere. What is going to happen? What has to happen for that to somehow turn itself around? I think we have the same problem in the infrastructure side. Projects, they're just not happening as fast as they should be happening or really are required to happen.

and you always see these projects running long. A big part of that is lack of skilled labor, of having the management style too. You have these kids coming out of college. They throw them into these positions that they have no business being in, making decisions on stuff that they just don't have the experience to do, right? They're smart.

Don't get me wrong. They're smart kids and they need, if they had more time and more direction, they would be good, but they get thrown into the fire. And that's a little bit of a problem. But I think even what you just mentioned, residential and those types of trades, it's even worse. You know, how many people do those companies usually have?

Maybe 10, 20, you know? So, and it's feast or famine. It's either they got too much work and not enough people or too many people and not enough work. And you don't want to let go your people because you let them go. They're going. They're going. To the next contractor, right? And how do you keep your doors open if you have people just standing by doing enough?

nothing, right? But you had some guys on your crew who you'd have for like 20, 20 some years. Oh, yeah. We've have, we have some longevity. We've had, and I believe it's because of our model, keeping hiring people for the area. And so with general contractors, let's give you an example. So this is the bad knock on construction too. General contractor, they come into town, they build this big job. At the end of the job, everybody's, you know, here's your papers, we're done, go find your next job. Okay. They may keep their hire-ups, their superintendents and stuff like that. The project managed and transferred to them another job within the country or within the state if they have the work.

But that's not what we do. We hire them, like I said, for that area. And then my job is to keep enough work in that area to keep those guys working. Now, obviously, I've got 100 less employees. Those people are out in the market working for somebody else. I wish they were working for me, but I don't have the workload to support that right now. It's really like three-dimensional chess. I mean, there's so many different things to think about, so many different things to worry about.

It's such an anticipatory game. You know, you have to guess right at a time when you probably don't feel like guessing. But I want to go back to the tying for a minute and the bending over and the technology. Because, you know, we had a fun little moment in the show there where you basically taught me how to tie. And so the first thing I'd like you to do is just explain to people like anything else there's an art. to everything and the art of tying, hand-tying rebar. I mean, I've seen contests, such great pride in being a great tire. It's just really interesting. But I also know that adapt or die, and technology comes along now that gives you a gun, a literal gun that can do this job,

right? Yeah. It's so much faster. It's not a literal gun. It's a tying gun. Well, it's a gun. It's just got a different kind of bullet in it, you know. But the question is, you know, on the one hand, you've got to be super excited to have this technology that lets your guys be more efficient. On the other hand, there's this weird resistance to embracing new technology because the old technology is a thing that now feels like a badge of honor. And are you trading in one skill? Are you cheating somehow? Right. I'm just always interested in the way guys like you process a choice. like that. Shameless plug.

Long before she was Peggy Roe, my mom was Peggy Noble, daughter of Carl and Thelma Noble. It was her father, Carl, who inspired me to pitch a show called Dirty Jobs to the Discovery Channel, and later start a foundation that honored the kind of work Carl Noble did for a living, trade work, skilled labor. That foundation is called MicroWorks, and today I'm proud to tell you that we've helped

thousands of people get the training they need to begin a career in the skilled trades. In fact, we'd love to help you. You can apply for a work ethic scholarship right now at microwworks.org. We've set aside $10 million for this year's applicants. Thanks to a number of very effective fundraisers, including the one with my grandfather's name on the label. I refer, of course, to Noble Tennessee Whiskey, K-N-O-B-E-L, which is now available in a variety of delicious mash bills, all of which you can peruse at noblespirates.com. In fact, if you spend 100 bucks and use code Carl, C-A-R-L, you'll get one tube of orange bitter-infused sugar cubes for free.

That's code Carl with a C to get nine sugar cubes, ingeniously engineered to make nine perfect old-fashions every time. It's my favorite way to support MicroWorks and my favorite whiskey to sip responsibly after a long day of interviewing people on this podcast. Pick up a bottle at noblespirates.com. K-N-O-B-E-L-Spirits.com. Soon may the noble men come to bring a bottle for everyone. One day when the waitin is done, we'll take a drink and go. So my company in particular, me in particular, I'm very technology forward thinking. I know it can't stay the way it's always been, right?

I know it's going to go. So I'm not as resistant to change as some other people might be, especially in my age group. So hand tying, like I told you, everybody is going to need to learn how to tie by hand because even though we have that tool that I showed you that can tie on the deck and I'll tell you some other stuff that you're going to be very impressed with in a second. But we have that tool. That gun cannot be used in every application. Okay. So when you're tying, there are limitations to the intersection size, the bar intersection size of those guns can tie. So when we're tying a substructure like the peer cap or the inverted T that you worked on or these footers that have number 11 bars in them, those guns won't work.

So the iron worker, to be an iron worker, needs to know how to tie. And so we are going to make sure everybody learns how to tie. on the decks where that backbreaking, what can we do to make that work less backbreaking, less time bent over, right? So the guns are there. The guns, so we have figured, we've done a couple of cost studies now on it. Let's just say an average ironworking tie,

about 200 ties an hour, okay? And they can't do it for eight hours a day. Nobody is going to be able to tie like that for eight hours a day. With the gun, you can tie about 600 ties an hour. Is that much faster? Okay? That's a great thing. The guns, there's a cost.

You have now the cost of the gun, which is about $3,500 a piece. And the tie wire for the guns is a lot more expensive. Okay. So now you're going, oh, well, that's, Jack, then why don't you have all these guns? Well, guess what? The tie wire and the gun costs, the equipment costs, and the repair. on the equipment and then the lost equipment and stolen equipment, when you start adding them all up, it's not necessarily cheaper, even though it's faster, right? So there's a tradeoff there.

There's a lot of math and calculation and forethought that has to go into it, which is better. The work can get done faster, which means I can generate more dollars for my company per hour faster, okay? But I don't know at the end of the day if cost is actually better by using the guns and then hand tying. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, I mean, there's a guy, I think Max is the company that makes these guns, if I remember right? Max USA, yes. And that's who we're using. Yeah, yeah. So somebody on that end of things is going, okay, well, we're in the gunmaking business, and we're going to make a tool that's going to save the user X amount of time. So that means we can charge X amount of money. And it all gets thrown into the same giant algebra problem.

and in the end, everybody has to decide, okay, did I make enough money to justify this? Or was life simpler when my guys were bent over and their refrigerator repairman cracks were glistening in the sun? And I could see him working and tying everything off. And life just made a little bit more sense. Right. Right? Now, you know, on the labor side, you have guys that can tie 200 ties an hour. You got guys that might be able to tie 250, 300.

Then you have guys that only tie 100. Okay? Now, typically you're paying those guys at different pay levels, so it kind of all goes out. There's a challenge there, and so you have that. I will challenge the fact that they're in the gun tying business, the gun equipment business. I would say that they could give us the guns because they're in the tie wire business. The commodity is the tie wire, and guess what? The tie wire for those guns only comes on this patented spool that you can only get from them.

So I'm not knocking them. Listen, it's a business model. I get it. They're a partner of mine. I love what they're doing. But I also say to them, why is this wire so expensive? And in my mind, and this is the way I think, I'm like, it has nothing to do with what it costs to manufacture of that wire.

It has to do with what they figured the value of that wire is with combination of their gun, right? That's right. Sure. And am I wrong for thinking that? That's just the way I think, you know. No, I mean, it's really no different than getting a great deal on a 357 mag or just a great price on a barretta and then find out the bullets have doubled in value, you know, doubled in cost. And let's make sure that you tell them, I love Max USA. I'm not criticizing them, but I just think that's marketing and economics, you know, is way this goes.

And so let's not fool ourselves to think that they're in the tool business. They make a tool, but where's the repetitive income coming from? It's coming from that wire. Well, isn't there also something called a tie bot that's doing everything? Okay. So now you're getting into, so we are the only subcontractor in the Southeast right now, integrated partner with advanced construction robotics. So Mike, now we have a robot that does the bulk time.

So the robot comes through and ties the intersections. Now that robot can tie with one operator, or one robot supervisor. It's not even called an operator. One robot supervisor, 1,100 ties an hour. Okay? And it doesn't take water bricks, and it doesn't stop. It doesn't need to go, even if the operator has to turn us back, that the robot's tying. Okay?

This has been something, we've been working with advanced construction robotics with Tybot for two and a half in December. It'll be three years now. So we've been doing this. We've been doing this on different projects. There is the technology is there. When we started, it was a learning process, getting to be able to use it. The robotics needed to be advanced. But we're to the point now, well, we're averaging 1,100 ties an hour.

So you do it a 10-hour day. What is that? That's 11,000 ties. That's a lot of ties. It's a lot of bridge that can get done. with one person and one robot. Right. I mean, it's so complicated talking about that weird space

between effectiveness and efficiency. Right. And when technology and advancement actually supplants humanity, that scares people and that worries people. But at the same time, here we are in a critical industry. I mean, your industry is really only a matter of national security, right? And you can't find the people that you need to do. do the work. So I guess you just have to embrace the technology with at least one arm. You certainly

can't reject it. No. So my position on it is we want to be on the forefront. I don't want to be reading about somebody else doing this. So we're out there. We're working this. We're figuring it out. We're figuring out how to make it cost effective. And trust me, we've had many variations on how to do that. And we're actually in the process now of making that robot part of our crew. not having a separate robot supervisor, training a guy from the crew, how to run the robot so the foreman can mandate when the robot works and run the robot doesn't,

knowing that the robot's fast, and so the key is you've got to be able to have enough steel laid out in front of it or it's going to catch you. But when it catch you, you don't want a robot supervisor just sitting there idle. We're training now our ironworkers to run the robot, to make it integrate it as part of our crew, to make it part of our operation.

But it took, it's three years, now. We've gone through many variations of this. And then not only that, getting contractors to want to be part of your test, you know, to be able to, because there's some sequencing that has to happen differently on their side. How willing are they to do this? Some have been very willing. Some not so much, you know, still want to do it the same way they've always done it. Yeah, man, that's the inertia that I'm talking about, just the homeostasis, that almost irresistible quality, to stand still. You can't do that and survive,

but by the same token, there's so much great about your industry that is sort of in the past. Like right now, the question I want to ask you is never mind the robots, never mind the guns. Who is the greatest tire you've ever seen? Who's the hardest working rodbuster

you've ever known? Talk to me about that guy, because as you think about it, I'll tell you, I got more feedback after our segment aired from people who were just flicking around and got a load of Sergio. Sergio looked like

he was carved out of an ebony mountain where godlike rodbusters and ironworkers come from. They couldn't get enough of him. That whole crazy thing we did with the water in slow motion people just went bananas for it. And so the human side

of what you do, I mean, in the end, we're still flesh and blood. blood. So who's the best? So I've worked around a lot of good iron workers and I've employed a lot of really good iron workers. Sergio was a specimen. Don't get me wrong. He is, first of all, the guy's got an attitude and a personality that just makes you want to work with him, right? He's just a good dude, good-hearted, smart guy, hardworking. If I could have people with that attitude, man, that would be great. He's just fantastic. Yeah. But my most productive, my best iron worker is one of my superintendents.

His name's Rommel Castellon. He's been with us now the longest at Shelby Rectors. He's the longest tenured employee with Shelby. He's fantastic. What makes him great? You know, Mike, if I could figure out how to duplicate him, I'd have no worries in the world, right? I'm not 100% sure because he's not like me, kind of big guy, bold in your face kind of guy. you know, loud, type A personality.

He's more reserved. He's a Hispanic guy. I believe he's from Guatemala. Short, but hard is working. And I think what it is is he leads by example. He's running right now for me. This is no joke. He's got like 12 jobs.

Every single job is under budget. He has four or five foremen that run with him. They all perform fantastically. And I don't know. I don't know what makes him so good, but he is by far probably one of the best I've got. Is there a substitute? Like when the boss comes down into the trenches and does the work, you know, to me, I've never seen anything more compelling or persuasive in 20 years of dirty jobs and on

deadliest catch too. When you see an old captain come out of the wheelhouse and start hauling. Right. and working with the deck hands, it viscerally changes the attitude on the boat, sometimes even the parametric pressure. Right. It has an impact that's very difficult to articulate.

And I saw it with your crew too, because you still get out there. You're still doing the work. Yeah. That matters. Well, I wish I was still working physically with my tools. Can I do it? Yeah, I know I can.

Would I pay the price? I would be like you. I probably couldn't walk for, a week. I've gotten soft in my old age. I think the last time I actually went and physically worked on the job, I lost my toenails. How? They just, after walking and carrying steel and doing that for a day or two, they got black and blue and they fell off to my big toes. How does that happen? I don't know how that happens, but it's true. Here's the thing you saw. You saw. But my foreman are working foreman.

Every one of my forming wear their tools. Okay? First of all, in my industry, there's not enough money in my industry. I can't charge enough to have non-working foreman. But secondly, how do you expect to lead somebody and get people to do this very hard work if you're not willing to get in there and do it yourself and get in there? And so that is also one of the problems with getting people wanting to do our industry. They think, well, I get to a foreman level and I don't have to do anything.

Well, that may be true on a general contractor's crew, but that ain't true working for me. We can't afford it, and that's not the way it is. You've got to, you set the pace, you set the example. Ramell being that superintendent level, and all my superintendents will step in and put their tools on. So to your point, when they need to, they get in there. When they're so busy coordinating all their work and they can't, they can't. But when they can, they get in there to set the tone and make sure the pace can be set. And let's say you get on a job, and it's a hard budget to hit.

the way to fix that is the foreman or superintendent get in there and show everybody, yes, we can hit this budget. This is how it gets done. And then there's no excuses. You take away the excuse, right? And these tools, Chuck, that he's talking about, it's not just, you know, the importance of a tool on a job. Everybody understands that. But when you're a rodbuster, you carry your tools. You have a tool belt, and on that belt are just myriad things.

and they're all heavy, you know, and I remember leaving the bridge where we were working and then showing up at the next site at these inverted teas and I got out of the production van. Jack comes right up, first thing, he's got this 35-pound belt.

He's like, here are your tools. Don't forget your tools. You got a little spring in your step. I saw a glint of optimism in your face. Well, screw that, put your tools back on. I'm like that right now. Forget about that. You just get so used to carrying around

an extra 35 or 40 pounds all the time. All the time. What you're saying is, congratulations, you're a foreman. Put your tools on. Congratulations, you're a supervisor. Put your tools on. Yeah. Congratulations. You run the business. Put your tools on. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And to me, here's one of the problems that we have in some of the other trades. They don't do that anymore. The superintendent of the foreman, they don't put their tools on. They don't, they want to lead from their pickup truck. So as soon as they drive away, you know what everybody at that crew says, look at that fat ass. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know if I could say that. But anyway, You know, look at that guy. You know, he's not, oh, he just comes over here and points and screams and yells.

Well, why don't you get out of your truck and show us how you want it done and get in there and engage with those guys? And I do believe that's one of our problems in our industry. You know, everybody wants to be a supervisor. God, dude, that's a macro problem. Everybody wants to get to the point where they don't have to do the work. And it feels like now, I don't want to get all soapboxy about it, but you know me. I've been talking about work ethic for 15 years and my personal belief and a belief that's been shared with me by virtually everybody I've ever met and worked with on that show that work ethic is under siege. Something has happened in the society and it's rotting from the inside out.

I've talked with hundreds, maybe thousands of people about A, is it really happening? And B, what can we do about it? And Chuck's had a front row seat to it. Even on this podcast recently, we've talked to economists who now have the data. You've got seven million. I don't know if you know this. There's seven million men between 25 and 54. Sitting home, able-bodied men in the prime of their working life who are not only not working,

but who have affirmatively chosen not to even look for work. And the vast majority of them are spending over 2,000 hours a year on their screens. So what can we do? What are they trying to do? Have they determined, I mean, are they trying to make money like doing what we're doing here being on a podcast? Or are they trying to make money on the internet? What are they doing? How are they trying to make money? Or are they just trying to take every penny that the government will allow them to have by not working and surviving that way? It's not just the government, although I think that's a big part of it. Nick Eberstadt, who wrote the definitive book on the topic, believes it's a big part of it. But it's tough to paint with

two broad a brush. Some of these guys are living at home. Some of them are in a situation where maybe there are rents covered. Maybe some of them have a certain amount of assistance that's coming in. The other problem is disability. We say those seven million are able-bodied, but that doesn't mean that a big chunk of them aren't collecting disability. And this is super controversial, and it's difficult to, again, paint with too broad a brush, but by far, the two biggest disability claims out there in the world right now are back problems and mental problems. The two, coincidentally, that are the hardest to verify. To diagnose. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I'm not about to say back problem is a myth. Believe me, I couldn't stand up straight after meeting you. Thank you very much

and working for a single day. I know it's real. But, yeah. these numbers don't lie and it's bad. It's a lot of people who could work but aren't. Do you still think that there's a skills gap or do you think that now it's more of an attitude gap? I just said this in an interview the other day. I spent the first seven years of microworks talking about a skills gap and genuinely believing that if we could equip more people with the necessary skills, the gap would shrink. I still think that's part of it, but now it's a will gap too. It's just a straight up crisis of will. And I don't know what to do about it. I'm like, in my world, Dirty Jobs is a fun show. And I never wanted to hide from the fact

that it is hard and it is sometimes dangerous. And it's not for the faint of heart. And those things might discourage people from exploring a career in the trades. But at the same time, you were there. I paused and talked to you a lot, partly to catch my breath, but partly because I wanted to hear from you. You know, your thoughts on college, your thoughts on recruitment, your frustrations as an entrepreneur. And I still want to hear that in the time we have left. I want to hear about Jennifer. I want to hear about how your marriage and your wife became your partner and how you two are two sides of the same coin and how Shelby really wouldn't exist without her talents too. Do do do do do do do do do.

The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure, but if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, we need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before, with hundreds of chapters and schools all over the country. and hundreds of thousands of students participating and competing every year.

Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA. And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be among the people. people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and

see the impact for yourself and see too how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skills usa.org slash Mike. That's skillsusa.org slash Mike. I'm talking skills, skills, U.S. Skills, U.S.S. Skills USA. Oh, well, there's so much truth to that. I mean, I work for my dad for a long time. And then Jennifer and I had this discussion about, you know, my dad's half Puerto Rican, so you wouldn't know that I'm part Puerto Rican, right? I've got 25% Puerto Rican blood in me. You can see it in my olive skin and complexion, right? Well, that doesn't work.

No, not so much. But back in the day, you know, the DBE, which disadvantaged businesses are minority contractors. My dad was a minority contractor through his Spanish heritage, right? And then through hard work and dedication to the trade, my dad's company outgrew that program. He became two successful. Okay. So I'd always had in my back of my mind, I said, you know, Jennifer could do this. You know, at the time she was a teacher. She didn't really have much of an interest in it, but we did start Shelby Rectors just with the thought that maybe someday, you know, we want to get into it. Well, as it turns out, seven or eight, maybe 10 years into her teaching career, she got surplus as a teacher, which basically means she got let go from the school system. And now...

That's a great word, by the way. Yeah, surplus. Surplus. She was surplus. Yeah, we're not firing people anymore. We're surplusing you. Congratulations. Yeah, there's a teacher shortage, but they're surplusing her, but there was a teacher shortage, right? So you go figure, I don't get that one. Not that she was a bad teacher, it was a head volleyball coach and stuff like that.

So I don't really get into the politics of these things. But at any rate, so then we found ourselves with a need to, well, Jen needs to replace her income. And her income as a teacher wasn't a lot. So let's kick up Shelby Rectors, Jen. I got a contractor that'll give you your first job because in order to get certified as a DBE with DOT and stuff like that, you're going to have to have experience. And it can't be my experience because then you would just be a front, right, for me. And that's not what this is.

So she went, we got her a job, $50,000 contract, took six months or so, completed her first job. And she says to me, and she'll tell you this, man, I can do this. We do one job at a time. I could do this, right? and I looked at her and I laughed, I said, yeah, that'd be great, knowing that you can't just do one job at a time. You get one job. Then the next thing you know, how do you keep those people busy? So you need more jobs.

And then so every time she does the active job list now, she goes, 42 jobs, Jack. What happened to one job at a time? She said, you lied to me. I said, I didn't lie to you. I just smiled at you and let you think that maybe you could do it that way. But I surplus the truth. Yes, exactly. You know, she has a college education.

She went to school. She's smarter than I am. And, you know, I'm people smart or field smart, but she's book smart. And so she is able to run the administrative side of this business. And I provide the construction expertise. So for a long time, I just worked for her as a consultant. I wasn't even on Shelby's payroll. And I was working for my dad and consulting with Jen.

and providing her construction expertise, and then she was running the business. And when we got to being big enough to where, hey, this isn't making sense, and my time was getting split. And I think my dad was actually getting annoyed. So I started consulting for my dad, and I went to work for Jen.

So I started doing operations. I mean, that's not a model that you read about in the Harvard Business School. I just think it's so important for people who are trying to figure out a way and sometimes the best way, it's just not going to be in some instruction manual. You have to kind of figure all of this out and whether part of it has to do with a minority advantage that you can leverage early on or the right wife who's willing to get out of her comfort zone and weigh it into

the craziness of your world and all of these other things. In the end, Shelby Erectors is an American success story. You're a multi-million dollar business. You're employing over a hundred people. You're building the infrastructure. As I recall, you got two kids, a couple grandkids now. Yeah, I started on the way. Yeah. So two grandsons and we're building our own baseball team. It'll be boys so far. So baseball or football team. But I didn't set out to get into this industry. I certainly didn't set out to become a construction expert in my field. I didn't set out to be a guest on dirty jobs or on, you know, people asked me all the time. How did you do that?

I said, I don't know, they found me. So it was one of those things where, and I told this to your people that found us, we had spent, and I had hired a consultant, and we had spent time working on our brand, brand recognition, right? We wanted to make a brand that we could be proud of with our logo, and what our core values was and stuff like that. And I honestly believe it was that presence on the internet is how you found Shelby Erectors, your team, right?

They went down at an internet search, and I think it was Ben's son had said to me, he goes, he came up to me, he says, I want you to know that was the easiest sales pitch I ever made. And I go, really? He goes, yeah, he says, I went in there, I showed him what you guys were doing. And he said, and everybody was on board,

so to get a hold of you. And I don't know if I told you this story, but we were in a production meeting. I had already agreed to do the show. They just said it was some cable show. I didn't know what show it was. And we were in the production meeting. It's the School of Humans.

It's not Mike Roe productions. It's not dirty jobs. They don't tell you that. I'm going, all right, this sounds cool. The first thing I asked her when she proposed to do a show like this, I go, is this some kind of deal where I got to pay for advertising fees? You know, I got to pay you guys $3,000 for you to do an article on my car. company. And she starts laughing at me. And I said, well, I've had that before. You know,

you get these magazine articles they want to do on you, but they want you to pay for it, right? So we're in the production meeting, and they kept mentioning Mike. And in the middle of the meeting, I finally said, I go, can you guys tell me who's Mike? You guys keep mentioning Mike. I said, and this is the honest God truth. This is what I said. Is this that guy Mike Lowe from Dirtiest Jobs? and they go, well, it's Mike Roe from Dirty Jobs. And then my jaw dropped.

I looked at my wife and I go, what the hell? This is like a real, this is a real show. This is a big deal, right? So all of a sudden, that's how gullible I am. I didn't even know what I was getting involved in until we're already committed to doing the show. And then I find out it at you and your team.

And, you know, we were so honored to do it. That's an honest God story of how, this all came about. It's great to hear. I told them pretty candidly when we decided to bring the show back, which, by the way, we did because of lockdowns, because essential work came back in the headlines.

I swore I'd never, I did 300. I was done in 2012. I'm like, that show damn near killed me. I got to move on. Kind or gentler show. Whatever. Way leads on the way. You make plans.

God laughs and so forth. But I said, look, this time, don't go out into the world saying, Dirty Jobs is coming back because you'll have a line 10 miles long of people who will do or say anything to get on that show. I wanted people who already had enough skin in the game and enough sense to look around and say, look, I want to tell my story to anybody who will help me tell it. And then, because MicroWorks had evolved, I told the School of Humans, I said, look, find people who are on the same page in terms of recruiting and find people who might have

something to say about the value of mastering a skill. I didn't want to turn the show into a polemic or like lecture anybody, but I also wanted to know at this point in my life I was talking to somebody who saw the world in more or less the same way. Yeah, Ben called and said, here's everything you need to know about Jack Nix. He's fucking awesome. You're going to love it. And that was the easiest pitch for him. I was like, done. I trust you. And your crew was a amazing. The day was hot and sufficiently miserable. I'll end this where we started. It was such a funny, painful, poignant day because here I am doing the show I love again, after swearing I'd never do it, and regretting it and loving it, almost an equal measure. Like 51% love,

49% regret. And that, if I'm being honest, when I look back at my own misspent career, that's exactly where you need to be. So that's funny as hell. I'm doing what, on a much smaller scale than you, I'm trying to do what I believe you're trying to do, which is talk about the industry in a light in which people go, hey, maybe I want to be like that guy. Maybe there's an opportunity for me in that. You know, I belong. I'm on the board of directors for the Steel Erecter Association of America. And our big push is training and creating these apprenticeship programs and talking about the industry, doing job fairs, and just, listen, I love this industry. It's been good to me, right? It's been very good to me. So I want to

let other people know that there's, construction is still a place where you can go without a college education and be very successful. The key is you have to have drive and the willingness to work and work hard, whether that be physically or mentally. Either way, it's not an easy industry. But no industry is easy, right? I guess unless you're a TikTok influencer or whatever those internet people are, you know, that may be the easy jobs that are out there, but any job that you're going to be successful at takes effort and you have to be good at it. But construction... Well, the TikTokers don't get to drive through Florida and say, I built that bridge. Yeah.

They don't get to do that. Exactly. But construction is still that wild, wild west, where you can still go and you can be a guy like me that's very rough, not politically correct, but is driven and can make a good career for themselves. And you can do it at whatever level you want. You know, I have guys that work for me that have no interest in being a foreman. They just want to be the best iron worker they can. They want the best wage that they can get for doing that. and I say, hey, the only way you're going to make more money at this point is if you take on some responsibility.

No, boss, I'm good. That's what I want to do. They want to turn it off at 3.30 or 5.30, whatever time it is, which is not a convenience that us people have that are in the upper management. We don't get to turn it off at the end of the day. It's always on, right? But there are a lot of people that want to turn it on at 7 o'clock when it starts and turn it off when they go home and be done with it, right? And I respect that. I don't identify with it, but they're, are those people. And there's a place for everybody in this world. And if that's what they want to do and that's what makes them happy, then damn it, let them do that and be happy. And then you got to find the ones that want to go on further. If I could think of anything wiser to say than that, I would. But that's probably a good place for us to land the plane, Jack. I know you're busy. Probably got a bridge to build. Which key are you in? You in West, Largo? Right now I'm in Tavineer. So I'm in Tavenir Key, which is just south of Key Largo.

My home is in Key Largo, but at my home, too, is under construction and has been since February and is behind schedule. Okay. Well, I'm not building it myself. I promised my wife we would be in there by December 31st. I am going to lose that bet miserably. Okay. I'm hoping the best for February, but that's the state of affairs. Chuck, can you imagine, like, you're the head of the crew that's building Jack Nix's house,

and you're behind, and Jack Nix comes to you and says, hey, what the hell's going on? It's like, you know what? I don't think I can BS this guy. I think this guy builds bridges for a living. I think I'd better love it with him. And I love my builder, but I will tell you this, I'm not a housing guy. I'm a bridge guy, right? There's a lot of different nuances and stuff that I'm like, and all the sequencing and stuff.

And I get it. I understand construction. But I'm like, man, why is this taking so long? You know, why can't we just jump in there? But it's, you know, you have all the different trades. And each trade's got to get there and do their thing. And right now we're waiting on the AC guy to put his stuff in. So, you know, it's just, it's, you know, it is what it is. But last question, it's apropos of nothing, but it just occurred to me.

What is, in your estimation, the greatest bridge on planet Earth? Oh. well you won't find it in Florida so if you want to go and you're really looking at history wise and I look at how did they build that back then so bridges like the Brooklyn Bridge and you just go how do they do that the equipment wasn't the same a lot of people died a lot of people died that's right the standards weren't the same but you know just how did they do that I mean that's there's some pretty incredible stuff out there and you just go, how do that? I don't even know.

I mean, I wasn't around when that stuff was going on. So, like, that's pretty incredible to me. Those big historic structures that were built so long ago and you just go, how did that happen, you know? So what about for you? No rebar. Limestone. You know, I'm sitting here right now looking at the Golden Gate

and it is one of the best examples of just beauty and functionality, utility. and art. But I'm just saying that because I don't want to repeat you. It's the Brooklyn Bridge. You know, I mean, I wrote a story about the Roblings a couple of years ago and what she had to do when he succumbed to, oh, God, horrible fires and the caissons and, you know, those men going down in these pressurized rooms and working underwater and the gas that fills

up and there and just, I mean, it was, it was before ocean. It was before anything. It was just baked into the deal. You know, how much death are we going to experience building this bridge? And the answer was a lot and we know it. Let's go ahead and build it anyway. That's crazy. I'll give you a list.

This is another story. You can put it on the cutting room floor or whatever. But in my history and construction, so I started in 1985, when I started, we were still allowed to wear shorts. It was not uncommon for us to not have a shirt on. There was no such thing as a body harness. Okay, we did not use body harness. Matter of fact, my belt with the tools on it that Mike was talking about was a leather belt

that was sweaty and just, you know, had been a, we would hang off a wall hooks off of a leather belt. I was building a 30-story high-rise, so 15 floors up, so 150 feet off the ground on the outside of the building. We were building a radius wall, and there was five of us, I think, hanging on this wall. they would bring the horizontals in with a crane probably four or five of them number sevens and we would set them on our wall hook which was on our belt and then we would pick them up and tie them they were probably six inches on center and we would move up the wall like that can you imagine today doing stuff like that so then we get into the age of tying off body harnesses and you're like what the hell is that well first of all then no you can't wear shorts or

more. You got to wear pants. Oh, you definitely can't wear no shirts. You got to have a shirt on. And that hard hat better be on your hat all the time. And then these safety glasses. And then the body harnesses came and now you got to be tied off all the time. And back then, we would walk girders. There was no tie off. There was never even thought about it. We just did it. And it was comfortable at heights. It was not an issue for me. A matter of fact, and at first, we all fought it because, oh, my God, this thing's going to make me fall. It's going to pull me back, you know, and it's that mentality wrapping your head around it to, you know, jump forward now.

I own a business and I am probably one of these strictest people on safety that there can be. And I would still, if I could get away with it, probably walk out there by myself without that stuff, but knowing that that's what it takes to save lives, right? It's so crazy how things have gotten. There's so much safer. That's the next thing. If you do things right, construction is a safe job. Sure. And it should be. We could do a whole other hour on this because it's kind of like the talk with the technology.

Why would you resist a tying gun? Why would anybody resist it? Why would anyone resist a hard hat? Why would anyone resist a harness and so forth and so on? I got a lot of angry letters over the years for a whole lot of reasons because optically, when people watch dirty jobs, whether you're a veterinarian or a farmer or a ranch or a construction guy, you're going to see. me doing something that you wouldn't do. You're going to see me doing something wrong. And of all the letters I got, I'll never forget, I was replacing water towers in Manhattan, those wooden towers on the top of the high rises. And you talk about a construction crew, Jack. Jesus, you would love these guys. They're like part construction worker, part Cirque de Soleil, refugee. They hang from their knees and they swing axes from angles you can't imagine and they deconstruct these wooden towers. And then they literally pull the platforms up that they've been standing on. And then they put new

ones down and they have to do it, you know, between nine and five. People come home and they use their showers. Anyhow, I got photographed out on a girder about 300 feet up and I realized I wasn't tied. And I'm okay with heights too. But I sat down on the thing and I kind of leaned back just because I could. And somebody took my picture. Holy crap, man. That thing made the rounds. And I thought OSHA was going to shut discovery down.

They were so pissed. And all I did, when things got really, really, really angry, I just found that classic picture of those guys taking their lunch break as they were building. I think it was the Chrysler building, maybe the Empire State. Yeah, it was one of those. And it's like, look, I'm not trying to be irresponsible. But nor am I trying to ignore the simple fact that that kind of thinking didn't build Chicago or New York or Los Angeles. That kind of thinking didn't build anything.

Sure, it made it safer. But we traded something, Jack. Something in the bargain got lost. I don't know what it is. Well, yeah, you're right. We could have a whole other conversation. So any time you would like to talk to me again, feel free to reach out because I love this conversation. I don't know if you've enjoyed this, but I,

I've enjoyed the hell out of this. And I don't know if I rambled too long, but I really appreciate the opportunity. You guys have been great and made this very easy. Jack, you're the real deal. Is that Jennifer you were waving too? Yeah, Jennifer, you want to come say hi to Mike? Stick her head in here, man.

Come on over here. Stick your head in here. Mike wants to say hi. Yeah. Chuck's going. Hey, dude, this is going on an hour and a half. There she is. Hi.

Hi, Jennifer. How are you? Nice to see you again. I can't hear. because he's... Oh, yeah, you hear my ear. He said, how are you? You can't hear him.

Of course. Getting out the earphone. Nice to see you again. Tell her, I'm sorry we cut her out of the show, and I hope this makes up for it. He's sorry that you get up on the cutting room floor, and he hopes this makes up for it. That's okay.

I'm more than happy to not be on camera ever. That's this guy. This guy loves it, not me. All right, Jack, thanks. We're going to let you guys go. Don't hang up just yet. This thing needs to upload. It just needs another minute.

Hey, thanks a lot, guys. I really appreciate the opportunity. You big guys would be great. Thanks. When you leave a review, which we hope that you'll do, tell us who you are. Tell us who you are. And before you go, won't you leave? Stop.

The ocean moves us. Surfing a wave or savoring the view. The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal cowpores. The ocean. us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays.

That's why Granger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-Grangeer, click granger.com, or just stop by. Ranger for the ones you get it done.